Yesterday my husband made an apple pie. This isn't an abnormal thing: in our 30 years of marriage he's baked nearly ALL the apple pies. Once, early in our marriage I made one, but he sniffed that it wasn't as good as his mother's. Wrong thing to say, dude. I declined to be the one making them ever since. He wants pie, he makes it himself. Happily, ( Read more... )

Somewhere in the distant past I must have read "Gettting Things Done" by David Allen. I know this because I recently re-read it and discovered that I've been doing this for years. It's a great book, by the way, and everyone should read it at some point. Some of it is useful across the board: break big projects down into the next action. Have a ( Read more... )

I'm a firm believer in spring cleaning. I set aside a few week-end days in May for it. I move furniture and wipe down baseboards, I clean the hot tub, I clean the outdoor furniture and reseal it with linseed oil, I oil our soapstone counters and the wooden cutting boards and handles. These are normal May chores. What isn't normal is to clean out ( Read more... )

Apparently an early warm snap followed by a cold snap killed the peaches around here. Whatever it was, it's really quite remarkable. The apple tree that had been pelting me with apples, a la Wizard of Oz, has a few deformed apples on it. It's stunted twin has one single apple on it. The peach tree that rains down peaches quite stressfully for two ( Read more... )

The only thing in my head right now is a "to do" list ( Read more... )

This entry from three years ago?

http://gwendally.livejournal.com/647208.html

Ditto.

Small Boy and I made a batch of sweet pickle relish today. When we were done, there was some of the pickling syrup leftover. I recalled a kale recipe that used vinegar, and thought, why not? It's not like I was going to ruin kale with syrup ( Read more... )

Small Boy and I just pulled in from the farmer's supply store, bearing a load of summer's bounty.  We got whole unpasteurized milk, some fresh green beans, two dozen humanely-grown eggs, and a cherry tree.  B. came down to help us bring in our load and said, "that's a tree!"  He thought we were buying cherries.  No, a cherry TREE.  This morning ( Read more... )

Notes to self: (throwing away a note as I clean for the party)

Cortland are good for cooking, eating and pie.
Baldwin are good for cooking, eating and storing
Russet are good for eating, storing and with cheese

Honeycrisp are my favorite for eating and dehydrating

I'm giving a talk next week on the subject of "Food Preservation and Creating a Deep Pantry" for a local Transition Town conference.


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